“Stop worrying about that. It’ll go away on its own” - Pediatrician at every well baby exam to a mother with a congenital eye condition. The mother was concerned that the baby was exhibiting symptoms of the condition also.

12 Responses to ““Stop Worrying About That. It Will Go Away On Its Own.””

When a patient has a question, please listen to the question before you answer it.

You may think it saves time not to listen to the question, but in actuality you’re either going to waste more time when the mother re-asks you the question she asked the first time, only with a lot more explanation (“Because you see, Doctor, my own condition did not go away and is heritable, and now I’m seeing signs of the same condition in my baby, which as you recall did not go away in me, so why are you saying it will go away?”)

Either that, or it will save you a *lot* of time because your patient will leave your practice, tell all her friends about the ignorant doctor (“I guess my congenital eye condition will also go away on its own! Hahaha! So yeah, that was Dr. SmithJonesMillerBaker. Avoid him.”) and you’ll have spare time and wonder why, but you won’t figure it out because you didn’t listen.

We worried about that happening, but then we realized that most people are sheep who believe anything we tell them. So in 18 months or 2 years, when we notice the eye problem, we will berate the mother for not being aggressive enough, shaming her into not telling her friends about us.

Besides, this practice is one of the only ones that takes her insurance in this town/has the hours she needs/with any openings so she’s stuck.

We’ve made sure that switching doctors is a pain, and most people won’t bother.

We were worried, for a time, about your assertion that people will leave the practice and tell their friends about the low standard of care in our profession. Then we realized that most people are sheep, and if if we just berate the mother for not bringing the problem to our attention, we can shame her into not talking about it. Most people won’t change doctors, because we’ve made it a pain to do so. You’ll probably send half a dozen requests for records before they actually go anywhere. Even though they’re all electronic anyway.

I’m fortunate enough to live in a state where the state licensing board gets really aggravated if you fail to turn over medical records in a timely fashion, so that’s okay. I do understand everyone is not so fortunate.

And we do understand the shaming tactics. It’s unfortunate they do work on a regular basis, but when people are recommending a doctor, they generally don’t recommend the lousy ones who make them feel bad. Over time, I believe, these tactics come home to roost.

This is me. I was born with Strabismus and have 6 family members with the same condition. The earlier treatment starts the better the result. She was finally diagnosed at her two year appointment by the same office’s nurse practitioner. We left to find another pediatrician shortly after that.

I’m so sorry it took so long for someone to listen. My daughter also has strabismus(plus amblyopia and newly diagnosed astigmatism). It took until she was 9 months old before we realised it wasn’t going to get better on it’s own. Thankfully my family daughter was very receptive and sent out a referral tight away.

When DS was little, his first pedi was great. I told her that both I and DS’s uncle(on the other side) have heart defects, the uncle had to have surgery as a child. I also have a hip defect. She arranged for a consult with a pediatric cardiologist and assured me the regular exam would catch the hip malformation, but that she appreciated me telling her. Pedi number 2 (when pedi one moved :( ) asked me why he was sent to a cardiologist, and when I explained the history of problems, she asked me if I was looking for a check for him. I didn’t catch what she meant at first and told her “of course I wanted it checked, if something’s wrong with his heart we need to know!” She said “A Social Security check.” I didn’t have any way to change doctors at that time, but when I did a few months later, b’bye, (not that I liked that pedi, either, though the one I have now for DD is wonderful)

Or my Cerebral Palsy? LOL 36 years and I’m still limping along, and most days I DO ignore it. Though I did have a “mental health” “doctor” once tell me it was all in my head. Well, yes, it is in my head. That’s where brain damage is.

Yeah, I got told that too. I suddenly developed severe fatigue one day in July 2007. After my primary doctor exhausted all of her medical expertise and resources, instead of referring me to a specialist, she said that the fatigue was all in my head and that I was making it up.

In 2011, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, a a auto-immune disease that affects the thyroid. The thyroid affects energy levels.